The End of Pax Americana, The Jews of Ukraine Under Threat — Again

This monument to the genocidal Jew-killer Bohdan Khmelnytsky stands proudly in modern day Kiev.

The Pax Americana which defined and stabilized the post-Soviet world has been discarded by Obama and the Democrat party.

Under the focus-tested phrase “smart power” the Obama Democrats have embraced the inertia of nothingness as foreign policy.

Putin watched as Obama backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, thereby betraying Israel and the Egyptian people; Putin grinned as Obama played Chamberlain to the nuclear Mullahs of Iran. And Putin laughed as Obama erased his Syrian red line, thereby allowing Putin to control the Syrian situation and rescue Assad’s machinery of slaughter. And how Putin must have danced a Hitlerian jig when Chuck Hagel announced that the American military is being eviscerated—in order to make it, um, stronger.

Vladimir, an old and ruthless KGB hand, no doubt recognized the duplicity of Hagel’s Soviet Newspeak.

Putin took the measure of Obama, and correctly concluded that America is willfully making itself over as a power averse, Western European welfare state.

Putin no longer has to worry about a geopolitical leadership that will put limits on his use of military power. There was a time when American presidents projected strength and leadership with the threat of force as a credible deterrent. But Obama’s “leading from behind” is code for surrender, a ghastly punch line for late night television. There is zero chance that Obama will use military force. As for sanctions, well, Putin will run rings around the hapless EU and the equally ineffectual community organizer.

Putin is a predatory wolf. Obama, a slice of meat.

And you better believe that the Chinese are watching Obama carefully.

They say that history repeats itself. This is not true. People repeat themselves. And Obama’s history of appeasement is about to play itself out once again.

In the meantime, the Jews of the Ukraine are under grave threat from all factions.

This article is by one of my closest friends since childhood, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

We are now witnessing the latest round of violence and tragedy in the Ukraine. And not for the first time, hundreds of thousands of Jews in that embattled country, perhaps as many as 400,000, find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Historically, Jews in Ukraine have suffered disastrous losses during times of upheaval. During the Cossack uprising of 1648-57, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, 15-30,000 Ukrainian Jews out of a total population of 51,000 were murdered or taken captive. The organized violence against the helpless and impoverished Jews in the Ukraine in the 19th and early 20th century spawned a new word in the lexicon of hate – pogrom. Many of our grandparents fled the Ukraine, arriving on American shores penniless with little more than a dream of a safe haven. During the Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War, another estimated 30,000-100,000 Jews were killed.

The total civilian losses during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine is estimated at 7 million, with more than 1 million Jews shot by Einsatzgruppen killing squads and Ukrainian collaborators in Western Ukraine.

To be sure, the Jewish community has not been center stage in the current epic struggle for Ukraine’s future. The just-deposed Prime Minister represents the still powerful pull of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Putin has always made it clear he will not accept a Ukraine that is tied to NATO or the European Union. So far he’s used the economic carrot of cheap oil and other incentives, but possible military intervention in Eastern Ukraine, with its significant Russian population — cannot be dismissed.

On the other side are Ukrainian activists who rallied around a Euro-centric vision of the future. Anyone and anything that insists on a link to Moscow and the memories of 70 years of tyrannical Soviet rule is out of the question. Unfortunately, among the masses of people who braved beatings, bullets, and death, were members of the nationalist Svoboda party, some of whose leaders have openly expressed anti-Semitic views.

Against this unsettling backdrop, after last month’s beating of two Jews, Kiev’s Chief rabbi has called on the city’s Jews to leave. Now comes word that unknown perpetrators hurled firebombs at the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia, located 250 miles southeast of Kiev. That house of prayer opened in 2012 – a sign of Jewish renewal in the Ukraine – was built on the spot where the Jews of that community were ordered to gather before being deported by the Nazis to their deaths.

It goes without saying that Jewish institutions are bolstering security and it has been reported that some public events have been canceled. One can only wonder what kind of Purim and Passover await our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Ukraine.

What will members of Europe’s third largest Jewish community do? Will they stay or go? The late Simon Wiesenthal imparted sage advice when he said, “Where democracy is strong it is good for Jews and where it is weak it is bad for the Jews.”

We can only hope and pray and that the forces of true democratic values and inclusion win the day in the Ukraine. That would be a blessing for all its people. In the meantime, today’s Ukrainian Jews are free to ponder an option their forefathers could only dream about. Israel is but a non-stop flight from Kiev. Look for those flights to be extra crowded in the days ahead.

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4 Comments

The Pax Americana which defined and stabilized the post-Soviet world has been discarded by Obama and the Democrat party.Under the focus-tested phrase “smart power” the Obama Democrats have embraced the inertia of nothingness as foreign policy.

If the Ukranians were to somehow make an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood and Radical Jihad, Obama would respond to their defense with light speed, and the Democratic Party following in full Liberal Hypocrisy Mode …

Not that I have any love for the Ukranians, but, as pointed out on Arutz Sheva, Netanyahu can mention that any of Obama’s ‘assurances’ for Israel’s safety, have the same value as the way he honors previous American assurances for the Ukraine’s safety against the Russians.

Netanyahu needs to tell Obama to take a hike. Israel needs to get as many of the Jews out of Ukraine as they can as quickly as they can. I would not put it past O to use those people and their safety as black mail on Netanyahu to try to force him to sign an agreement.

Thanks for addressing this – was wondering about the Jewish community there.
As a kid, I got the impression that Ukrainians in general were even more anti-Semitic than Poles. My paternal Uncle Friedl, to the best of our knowledge, was shot down by Ukrainians before the end of WWII. Ironically, he was the only of his siblings who chose not to spend (and survive) the war in Siberia with their mother (my grandmother).

It’s not only Ukraine. Obama is going to tell Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as it must complete a peace treaty with the Palestinians or risk destruction and becoming a pariah state. I wonder if he’s going to tell Putin that time is running out for Russia. Obama knows that the Palestinians will not honor a peace treaty, he just wants the apathetic electorate to think he’s a foreign policy expert.
With Obama as president and Kerry as Secretary of State, what could go wrong?

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Robert J. Avrech
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I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

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